Singin' in the Rain is a 1952 American musical comedy film starring Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor and Debbie Reynolds and directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, with Kelly also providing the choreography. It offers a lighthearted depiction of Hollywood, with the three stars portraying performers caught up in the transition from silent films to "talkies."

 

The film was only a modest hit when first released, with O'Connor's Best Actor win at the Golden Globes and Comden and Green's win at the Writers Guild of America Awards being the only major recognitions. However, it was accorded its legendary status by contemporary critics. It is now frequently described as one of the best musicals ever made,topping the AFI's 100 Years of Musicals list, and ranking fifth in its updated list of the greatest American films in 2007.

 

Plot

Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) is a popular silent film star with humble roots as a singer, dancer and stunt man. Don barely tolerates his vapid, shallow leading lady, Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen), though their studio, Monumental Pictures, links them romantically to increase their popularity. Lina herself is convinced they are in love, despite Don's protestations otherwise.

 

At the premiere of his newest film, The Royal Rascal, Don tells the gathered crowd an exaggerated version of his life story. His words are humorously contradicted by flashbacks.

 

One day, to escape from fans, Don jumps into a passing car driven by Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds). She drops him off, but not before claiming to be a stage actress and sneering at his undignified accomplishments. Later, at a party, the head of Don's studio, R.F. Simpson (Millard Mitchell), shows a short demonstration of a Vitaphone talking picture but his guests are unimpressed. To Don's amusement and Kathy's embarrassment, she pops out of a mock cake right in front of him as part of the entertainment; Kathy, it turns out, is a chorus girl. Furious at Don's teasing, she throws a real cake at him, only to hit Lina right in the face. Later, after weeks of searching, Don makes up with Kathy after he finds her working in another Monumental Pictures production. She confesses to having been a fan of Don and Lina's all along and they begin to fall in love.

 

After a rival studio has an enormous hit with its first talking picture, 1927's The Jazz Singer, R.F. decides he has no choice but to convert the next Lockwood and Lamont film, The Dueling Cavalier, into a talkie. The production is beset with difficulties. By far, the worst problem is Lina's grating voice. An exasperated diction coach tried to teach her how to speak properly, but to no avail. Meanwhile, Don is also taking diction lessons (albeit with much better results). He makes use of Tongue-twisters while his best friend, Cosmo Brown (Donald O'Connor), makes goofy faces in the background. Afterwards, Don and Cosmo mess up the room while staging a song and dance number ("Moses Supposes His Toeses are Roses") much to the bewilderment of Don's diction coach. The Dueling Cavalier's test screening is a disaster. In one scene, Don repeats the line "I love you" to Lina over and over, to the audience's derisive laughter. Then in the middle of the film, the sound goes out of synchronization, with hilarious results.

 

Cosmo then comes up with the idea to dub Lina's voice with Kathy's, and they persuade R.F. to turn The Dueling Cavalier into a musical called The Dancing Cavalier, complete with a modern musical number called "Broadway Melody". When Lina finds out, she is infuriated and does everything possible to sabotage the romance between Don and Kathy. She becomes even angrier when she discovers that R.F. intends to give Kathy a screen credit and a big publicity promotion. Lina, after consulting lawyers, threatens to sue R.F. unless he cancels Kathy's buildup and orders her to continue working (uncredited) as Lina's voice. R.F. reluctantly agrees to her demands.

 

The premiere of The Dancing Cavalier is a tremendous success. When the audience clamors for Lina to sing live, Don, Cosmo, and R.F. improvise and get her to lip sync into the microphone while Kathy, hidden behind the stage curtain, sings into a second one. While Lina is "singing," Don, Cosmo and R.F. gleefully raise the curtain. When Cosmo replaces Kathy at the microphone, the sham becomes obvious. Lina flees in embarrassment. Kathy tries to run away as well, but Don introduces the audience to "the real star of the film." The final shot shows Kathy and Don kissing in front of a billboard for their new film, Singin' in the Rain.

 

Cast

• Gene Kelly as Don Lockwood. Although his performance in the song "Singin' in the Rain" is now considered iconic, Kelly was not the first choice for the role—Howard Keel was originally cast. However, Keel was replaced by Kelly as the screenwriters evolved the character from a "Western actor" to a "song-and-dance vaudeville" performer.

• Donald O'Connor as Cosmo Brown. The role was based on, and initially written for, Oscar Levant.

• Debbie Reynolds as Kathy Selden. Early on in production, Judy Garland (shortly before her contract termination from MGM), Kathryn Grayson, Jane Powell, Leslie Caron, and June Allyson were among the names thrown around for the role of the "ingenue." Yet, Director Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly insisted that Debbie Reynolds always was first in their mind for the role. Although the film revolves around the idea that Kathy has to dub over for Lina's voice, in the talking scenes it was actually Jean Hagen's normal voice. Reynolds herself was dubbed in "Would You?" and "You are My Lucky Star" by an uncredited Betty Noyes.Also, when Kathy is supposedly dubbing Lina's voice in the live performance of "Singing in the Rain" at the end of the film, Jean Hagen is actually dubbing Reynolds' singing voice.

• Jean Hagen as Lina Lamont. Judy Holliday was strongly considered for the role of Lina, until she suggested Hagen, who had been her understudy in the Broadway production of Born Yesterday. Fresh off her role in The Asphalt Jungle, Hagen read for the part for producer Arthur Freed and did a dead-on impression of Holliday's Billie Dawn character, which won her the role. Her character was based on the silent picture star Norma Talmadge who bombed during the transition to talkies.

• Millard Mitchell as R.F. Simpson. The initials of the fictional head of Monumental Pictures are a reference to producer Freed. R.F. also uses one of Freed's favorite expressions when he says that he "cannot quite visualize it" and has to see it on film first, referring to the Broadway ballet sequence, a joke, since the audience has just seen it.

• Cyd Charisse as Gene Kelly's dance partner in the "Broadway Melody" ballet.

• Douglas Fowley as Roscoe Dexter, the director of Don and Lina's films.

• Rita Moreno as Zelda Zanders, the "Zip Girl" and Lina's informant friend. Considered to be based on Clara Bow (The It Girl).

• King Donovan (uncredited) as Rod, head of the publicity department at Monumental Pictures.

• Judy Landon (uncredited) as Olga Mara, a silent screen vamp who attends the premiere of The Royal Rascal. She is considered to be based on Pola Negri and Gloria Swanson.

• Madge Blake (uncredited) as Dora Bailey, a radio show host. Considered to be based on Louella Parsons.

• Kathleen Freeman (uncredited) as Phoebe Dinsmore, Lina's diction coach

• Bobby Watson (uncredited) as diction coach during "Moses Supposes" number

• Jimmy Thompson (uncredited) as the singer of "Beautiful Girl"

• Mae Clarke (uncredited) as the hairdresser who puts the finishing touches on Lina Lamont's hairdo.

 

Songs

Singin' in the Rain was originally conceived by MGM producer Arthur Freed, the head of the "Freed Unit" responsible for turning out MGM's lavish musicals, as a vehicle for his catalog of songs written with Nacio Herb Brown for previous MGM musical films of the 1929-39 period.Screenwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green contributed lyrics to one new song.

 

All songs have lyrics by Freed and music by Brown, unless otherwise indicated. Some of the songs, such as "Broadway Rhythm," "Should I?" and most notably "Singin' in the Rain," were featured in numerous films. The films listed below mark the first time each song was presented on screen.
 

• "Fit as a Fiddle (And Ready for Love)," from College Coach (1933)(music by Al Hoffman and Al Goodhart)

• "Temptation" (instrumental only), from Going Hollywood (1933)

• "All I Do Is Dream of You," from Sadie McKee (1934)

• "Singin' in the Rain," from Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929)

• "Make 'Em Laugh," considered an original song, but bearing close relation to Cole Porter's "Be a Clown", used in another Freed musical, The Pirate (1948).

• "Beautiful Girl Montage" comprising "I Got a Feelin' You're Foolin'" from Broadway Melody of 1936 (1935), "The Wedding of the Painted Doll" from The Broadway Melody (1929) and "Should I?" from Lord Byron of Broadway (1930)

• "Beautiful Girl," from Going Hollywood (1933) or from Stage Mother (1933)

• "You Were Meant for Me," from The Broadway Melody (1929)

• "You Are My Lucky Star," from Broadway Melody of 1936 (1935)

• "Moses Supposes" (music by Roger Edens, lyrics by Comden and Green)

• "Good Morning," from Babes In Arms (1939)

• "Would You?," from San Francisco (1936)

• "Broadway Melody Ballet" composed of "The Broadway Melody" from The Broadway Melody (1929) and "Broadway Rhythm" from Broadway Melody of 1936 (1935) (music by Nacio Herb Brown and Lennie Hayton)

 

Missing scenes

In an early draft of the script, the musical number "Singin' in the Rain" was to be sung by Debbie Reynolds, Donald O'Connor, and Gene Kelly on their way back from the flop preview of The Dueling Cavalier. In addition, "You Were Meant For Me" was not included in that draft. Instead, the love song was supposed to be Gene Kelly's version of "All I Do is Dream of You," which would be sung after the party at R.F. Simpson's house, when Kelly chases after Reynolds. The song would have ended up at Kelly's house. The footage of this scene has been lost. Reynolds' solo rendition of "You Are My Lucky Star" (to a billboard showing an image of Lockwood) was cut from the film, but has survived and is included on the original soundtrack and DVD version of the film.Rita Moreno was originally to have sung "I Got a Feelin' You're Foolin'," but this ended up being part of the Beautiful Girl medley.

 

Production

In the famous dance routine in which Gene Kelly sings the title song while twirling an umbrella, splashing through puddles and getting soaked to the skin, Kelly was sick with a 103 °F (39 °C) fever.The rain in the scene caused Kelly's wool suit to shrink during filming. A common myth is that Kelly managed to perform the entire song in one take, thanks to cameras placed at predetermined locations. However this was not the case as the filming of the sequence took place over 2–3 days.Another myth is that the rain was mixed with milk in order for the drops to show up on camera, but the shots were simply lit from the front.

 

Debbie Reynolds was not a dancer at the time she made Singin' in the Rain; her background was as a gymnast.Kelly apparently insulted her for her lack of dance experience, upsetting her. In a subsequent encounter when Fred Astaire was in the studio, he found Reynolds crying under a piano. Hearing what had happened, Astaire volunteered to help her with her dancing. Kelly later admitted that he had not been kind to Reynolds and was surprised that she was still willing to talk to him afterwards. After shooting the "Good Morning" routine, Reynolds' feet were bleeding.Years later, she was quoted as saying that "Singin' in the Rain and childbirth were the two hardest things I ever had to do in my life."

 

Donald O'Connor had to be hospitalized after filming the "Make 'em Laugh" sequence. He smoked up to four packs of cigarettes a day.

 

Most of the costumes from this film were eventually acquired by Debbie Reynolds and housed in her massive collection of original film costumes, sets and props. Many of these items were sold at a 2011 auction in Hollywood. While most items were sold to private collectors, Donald O'Connor's green check "Fit As a Fiddle" suit and shoes were purchased by Costume World, Inc. and are now on permanent display at the Costume World Broadway Collection Museum in Pompano Beach, Florida.

 

Reception

The film earned an estimated $3.6 million in theatrical rentals at the North American box office in 1952, making it the tenth biggest hit of the year.

 

Award and honor

For her role as Lina Lamont, Jean Hagen was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. The film was also nominated for a Best Original Music Score.

 

Donald O'Connor won a Golden Globe for this film.Betty Comden and Adolph Green received the Writers Guild of America for the best written American musical.

 

Singin' in the Rain has appeared twice on Sight and Sound's list of the ten best films of all time, in 1982 and 2002. Its position in 1982 was at number 4 on the critics list; on the 2002 critics' list it was listed as number 10 and it tied for 19 on the directors' list.The film has a rare 100% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 45 sources.In 2008, Singin' in the Rain was placed on Empire's 500 Greatest Movies of All Time LIst, ranking at #8, the highest ranked G-rated movie on the list.

 

In 1989, Singin' in the Rain was among the first 25 films chosen for the newly established National Film Registry for films that are deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation.

 

American Film Institute recognition

• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies - #10

• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs - #16

• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions - #16

• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains:

o Lina Lamont - Nominated Villain

• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Songs:

o "Singin' in the Rain" - #3

o "Make 'em Laugh" - #49

o "Good Morning" - #72

• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes:

o "What do they think I am, dumb or something? Why, I make more money than Calvin Coolidge! Put together!" - Nominated

• AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals - #1

• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) - #5

 

Home video

The 40th Anniversary Edition VHS version released in 1992 includes a documentary, the original trailer, and Reynolds' solo rendition of "You Are My Lucky Star," which had been cut from the final film.

 

According to the audio commentary on the 2002 Special Edition DVD, the original negative was destroyed in a fire, but despite this, the film has been digitally restored for its DVD release. A Blu-ray edition was released July 2012.

 

In popular culture

• A similar plot had been used in the 1946 French film Étoile sans lumière (aka "Star without Light"), directed by Marcel Blistène, starring Edith Piaf and Mila Parély and later in the 1959 British film Follow a Star, directed by Robert Asher and starring Norman Wisdom and Jerry Desmonde.

• "Singin' in the Rain" is sung mockingly by Alex DeLarge, played by Malcolm McDowell, in the rape scene in Stanley Kubrick's film A Clockwork Orange (1971).

• The "Singin' in the Rain" routine has been parodied or imitated numerous times, including by Morecambe and Wise, Paddington Bear, The Wombles and in the animated film Robots (2005). The dance was also parodied, briefly, by The Goodies during their television episode "Saturday Night Grease", where the music for the dance sequence was "Singin' in the Rain". It was also once sung (very badly) by Bill Owen outside Nora Batty's house in an episode of Last of the Summer Wine. In Fame, Coco Hernandez (played by Irene Cara) dances in a puddle on a train station while singing "Singin' in the Rain".

• World Champion Canadian figure skater Kurt Browning did an on-ice (and water) recreation in a Stars on Ice television special.

• In Legal Eagles, Robert Redford sings and dances "Singin' in the Rain" when he cannot sleep.

• In the Pixar film Wall-E (2008), the robot Wall-E briefly swings himself around a light pole in an echo of the "Singin' in the Rain" number.

• Gene Kelly's "Singin' in the Rain" sequence is one of the opening scenes of The Great Movie Ride at Disney's Hollywood Studios. Kelly approved his Audio-Animatronics likeness prior to its delivery to Florida.

• The dance to the title song is parodied in the Broadway musical Spamalot in the dance break to "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life," complete with tap dancing in raincoats and twirling umbrellas.

• In The Simpsons episode "Brawl in the Family", Groundskeeper Willie was singing with an umbrella, but in acid rain.

• In the Family Guy episode, "Believe It or Not, Joe's Walking on Air", Joe, Peter, Quagmire, Cleveland and Stewie performed a partial rendition of the "Good Morning" dance routine. Also, in the episode, "Peterotica", Quagmire recreates the "Make 'Em Laugh" number.

• In the Glee episode "The Substitute," Will Schuester and Mike Chang perform the "Make 'Em Laugh" song and dance routine as a duo (which was the hallucination of a sick Will). The cast also performs a mash-up of "Singin' in the Rain" and Rihanna's "Umbrella" at the end of the episode.

• In the 1998 American remake of the film Godzilla, the main character Dr. Niko Tatopoulos sings the "Singin' in the Rain" song.

• A 2005 Volkswagen Golf GTI commercial features Kelly's "Singin' in the Rain" sequence, but with Kelly performing hip-hop dance moves and a remixed version of the song playing in the background.

• In the 2003 film Shanghai Knights, Jackie Chan imitates Gene Kelly's dance moves (complete with umbrella) towards the end of a fight scene set in London, England. The original "Singing in the Rain" music plays over this sequence as a tribute.

• On The Muppet Show the Muppets want Gene Kelly to recreate "Singin' in the Rain" on a reconstructed set, though all he finally does is hum it as he crosses the stage.

• On episode 7, Season 35 of Saturday Night Live, Joseph Gordon-Levitt imitates Donald O'Connor's "Make 'Em Laugh" dance sequence for his opening monologue.